Effortlessly cool is not really a phrase you want to bandy about recklessly but Tim Hamilton’s show had cool in spades.

Featuring everything a man could want from a wardrobe, neat tailoring teamed up with quirks like harem jogging bottoms (better than they sound!), jackets with layered panels and zip up ankle boots resulting in a collection that was by no means unadventurous but eminently wearable.

Since I started on Brandish just over a year ago, I have repeatedly examined how trends begin in womenswear and eventually make the leap to menswear some few seasons later. Well now the Ombré trend worked by womenswear designers such as Jonathan Saunders and Prada almost three seasons ago has been dished out in rather glorious spades by designer Robert Geller.

The Sartorialist may have crowned New York as the centre of street style but Paul Flynn has written an eloquent piece on why London style is among the most interesting in the world, as part of the G2 London fashion special in the Guardian today.

Topman’s Spring Break collection is about to hit the stores and it’s a poetically downbeat affair. Set against a backdrop of blustery coastline and caravans there’s more than a touch of ’80s era Morrissey going on here.

Another item which is made for women but who gives fig when they look as good as this? The Liberty X Nike collab hits the Liberty store when else but this February 14th for a limited time, and when they’re gone, they’re gone.

How could we have missed the boat on this one? We heralded the age of the ‘medge’ aka the male wedge and we all witnessed the explosion of guyliner, manscara and what have you but somehow the ‘mlutch’ evaded us.

Spotting the familiar face of Yu Masui on NYT’s site brought back some good memories. We snapped Masui last year out and about at Graduate Fashion Week (right) in a great Balenciaga neckpiece and cropped trousers. Elizabeth Spiridakis (aka White Lightning), talking up her holy trinity of boy-fash crushes interviewed the Japanese fashion writer who said this about borrowing from womenswear:

Sometimes online shopping can be as exhausting as a trudge round the real shops (remember them?) So whilst all the coolest backs in town seem have an old-school canvas rucksack slung across them, tracking said item down online is more tricky.

Given the snowy conditions out there you might not be thinking about your spring wardrobe just yet, but fashion waits for no man and what better distraction from the ensuing chaos than some internet shopping? ASOS are fully stocked for summer, with some great options in chambray and seersucker.

“Rake-thin, 12 year-old-looking, alien-eyed lady-boys”- this is how one of my friends describes the male models of today. While I don’t quite agree with his overly-harsh and rather sweeping statement, I have to admit that there are times where the men plastered over magazines and high-fashion ad campaigns just seem completely out-of-touch.

Gareth Pugh‘s first menswear show was greatly anticipated but having seen it I rather feel a bit of an anticlimax. It was exactly as I could have predicted with wetlook finishes, goathair epaulettes, and Margiela-style .He carried on the aesthetic from his last womenswear show, taking his origami facets onto puffa jackets and trousers, and accessorising with studded boots and feather headpieces.

2009 looks like it will be a defining year for menswear, it’s already a given that designer high street collaborations will include a men’s line and Gareth Pugh will be bringing us his men’s collection in Paris in a few days.

The standout show at Pitti Uomo was, in my mind, Alexander McQueen’s “The McQueensberry Rules”. Where most Milan designers literally translated the gloom of the economic crisis McQueen added a murderous glint to the proceedings with aristocratic eleagance and a glossy nostalgia for a pre-Thatcherite Britain.

Topman has revealed their latest ‘trend’ (read: mini theme-based collection) and with a name like ‘Berlin Wall,’ I was expecting rough skinny jeans and a fusion of This Is England skin-head with a kind-of Soviet, military cool. As always, the high-street label has delivered…

It’s rare that a Christmas episode of Top of the Pops sheds light on a new sartorial trend but the most recent festive programme featured Kaiser Chiefs’ singer Ricky Wilson sporting a vintage brooch on his lapel.